Real Player

Real Player has its own way of doing things. When I download a file, and the title is in Hebrew, it downloads with a bunch of question marks. So I have know way of knowing what's what. Sometimes, but not always, I can go by the number of question marks and spaces, and compare it to what I was watching, and then rename it. But then when I want to save something on my flash drive, the question marks are spaces, and my replacement name doesn't show up.
Saving to Favorites isn't so great either. When your computer crashes, as it inevitably will, you lose them. There ought to be some way to copy your list of Favorites and print it out, but I don't know how.
I try to find usable tunes to Psalms. I haven't had a whole lot of success. Psalm 126 was once considered for Israel's national anthem. Psalm 128 is often sung at weddings. Everybody likes Psalm 121. Of course everybody likes Psalm 23, and there are many versions of it, but I still haven't found a version I like. There are just a few good choruses, but I'm looking for more than choruses. Now that I can do searches in Hebrew I might be able to find a few more, or I might be stuck with writing my own. There needs to be someone else for this job. I can do the transcribing, but to actually create good tunes is not especially my talent. But I'll keep at it anyway.

Imams

This morning before dawn, we heard the imams calling quite clearly. There is one in particular that is loud and clear and has a nice voice and an interesting tune. The first three notes are like E, D and C, but he ends the phrase with a D# slightly flat and an E slightly sharp, and the final note like a low B slightly flat. These are strange notes to the western ear, but they are true notes in some eastern scale, and they are sung exactly the same every time.
My electric piano, according to the manual, has a function for tuning the keys to Indian scales, but it doesn't work, or doesn't work on this particular model. I should stop in a music store sometime and see what kinds of harps or un-fretted stringed instruments there are that I could experiment with. Not that I have time for such explorations.

Traditions and Superstitions

Judaism contains more rituals, traditions and superstitions than you can imagine. I don't actually know anyone who believes and practices them all, but I hear of different ones here and there.
For example, you can't hold a baby while you're in mourning. If you do, something bad might happen to the baby.
If you're having trouble finding an apartment, you can hold a dead chicken over your head and say the chicken prayer. The people that did this found an apartment the next day, so they said, "It worked."
And it goes on and on.
Some traditions might have been quite sensible in the beginning, and some are based in some way or other on the Bible. Others are just nonsense.
"A sukkah must have at least two and a half walls covered with a material that will not blow away in the wind. Why two and a half walls? Look at the letters in the word "sukkah" (סכה): one letter has four sides, one has three sides and one has two and a half sides."
I haven't the energy to deal with too many traditions. Even birthday parties are too much. We buy kids toys they don't need and clothes they don't care about, but we think are cute. We put candles on the cake, make a wish, blow them out, then eat poison (sugar), and encourage small children to eat adult-size portions of cake and ice-cream. Then I go home and crash from the sugar, wake up and drink 2 liters of water to keep from getting a headache, and worry that my children will learn too late, as I did, that sugar is bad for you.
Traditions, rituals, and habits have a way of creeping into you life even when you don't want them to. True Christianity is diluted and polluted by all these. Family worship, morning and evening--very reasonable. The Lord's Supper, as often as once a week, but no Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter. If I had to worry about what time to light a candle, or whether I said all the right prayers, I would be a mess.
But,
I Thes. 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
Rom 8:26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered .

Sing Hebrew Psalms

Last week I made a most interesting discovery. There is a woman in Japan who is writing tunes for the Psalms in Hebrew. She started publishing them on YouTube about the same time I started working on tunes here. She has written more than a hundred. Only a few of them are the type I would use for my collection, but I hope to include a few of them. Don't ask me how many I have written--I haven't the slightest idea. Nowhere near a hundred. I have many starts, but few finishes.

I have spent hours and hours on the internet looking for Psalms suitable for congregational singing. Some are too complicated, some are too simple, some are too jumpy or jazzy. I did find a good tune for Psalm 100, written by an Englishman named Charles Kensington Salaman.

Here is a link to Psalm 115. I think it goes through the whole psalm twice, and then finishes with verse 9.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=567IHfwCb4I

October 2011, Succoth

I managed to get one picture of a succa on a balcony. Our neighbors have one in the parking lot in front of the building (takes space of one car), but I feel sort of nosy taking a picture of it. I think Succoth would probably be the most enjoyable of all the holidays. You get tired of living in a small apartment in a rocky city, but being outside in a little booth for 7 days (eating meals there, maybe even sleeping there), would be a refreshing change.
Some of the Sukkot are crude frames covered with old sheets and blankets. Others are quite nice. Some are plastic frames and fabric walls, with nice designs or a picture of Jerusalem. Some are wood panels with windows and curtains. I don't know what people do who have no place to put one. There are a few in a park down the street, with extension cords up to the fourth floor windows.
A man came to trim leaves from the two palm trees out front. The leaves were used to cover the top of a succa. That doesn't make a water-tight roof, but it's not likely to rain this time of year.

Abjad Hawaz Hoty Kalamon

Last week was an interesting week, for several reasons. One was that we got our first lesson in Arabic. Learning the alphabet will be the worst part. How worst I don't know yet. I'll just take it a day at a time.

Abjad Hawaz Hoty Kalamon is a way of remembering the first 14 letters. They are similar to the first 14 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. There are 28 letters in all.
Street signs are written in Hebrew, Arabic and English. At first glance it is 2/3 gibberish. I wish I had started 30 years ago. It's getting better, though. Arabic looks a little bit like shorthand, sloppily written, which I find intriguing. I am looking forward to deciphering the code.

Sometimes when I am speaking Hebrew, I wonder if what I am saying is gibberish. But usually you can tell you said something wrong when people give you a funny look. The funny look they give you is itself sort of funny. It's so automatic they don't even know they're doing it.

I found some you-tube videos that I hope to listen to soon. They are the Tanach in cartoons. The Hebrew spoken in them is very clear and easy to understand. And since I already know the stories, I can guess from context the words I don't know. And I can back up and re-listen as many times as I need to. In real life you can only test someone's patience so far. You can say, "Once again, slowly." Or "Did you say...?" Or "What does .... mean?" Or "Anglit, bevakasha?" "English, please?" but that's kind of a cop-out.

Something else really interesting happened last week. I'll save that for the next post.

Old Book Find

Sometimes people leave clothes, usable food, books, and household items sitting beside the garbage containers. Poor people (and others) can help themselves to it. And sometimes people make tours of all the garbage containers for things they can sell.

Garbage collection occurs only after all the containers are full to over-flowing. I don't know if that is a pre-determined schedule, or if they deliberately wait until the last possible minute.

Last week I found a pile of books to look through - partially-used school workbooks (falling apart), a couple magazines, and one (ok, I need a word here. What is it that you call an item of great value that you find in an unexpected place?). [For example, I once found a book that I had been wanting to buy, Andrew Murray's "With Christ in the School of Prayer," and it was at a large auction/sale on a table with no other books, but lots of jars and old household gadgets.]

The book is "Complete Verb Chart: conjugation charts of all the constructions, groups, and forms of all the verb roots in the Hebrew langauge from Bible times till now with detailed conjugating instructions." Ninety-six pages of code to decipher, if I were so minded. It is awesome to think of the work someone went to to compile it. Even more awesome to try to imagine learning it all. Maybe later. Much, much, much later.

Happy New Year

Rosh Hashana was Wednesday evening, September 26. The year is now 5773.

We go off daylight savings time Sunday, October 2, at 2:00 a.m.

We are currently 8 hours ahead of Houston time. After Sunday, for one month, we will be only 7 hours ahead. After November 6, when Houston's time changes, we will be 8 hours apart again.